You Fish, I'll Hold The Rod

Judge Walton, overseeing the Libby pre-trial maneuverings, agreed to review notebooks from TIME and the NY Times to see whether any of the material was relevant to Libby's defense.  E&P has coverage, as does the WaPo.

This is actually a reasonable result.  The Team Libby request for full access to the notebooks did have the look of a fishing trip, albeit to a well-stocked pond.  Evidently the judge decided to take seriously the possibilty that something in the notes could be relevant to the defense.

From the AP we got this cryptic message about human psychology:

The judge also indicated the defense will be limited in attacking Wilson, if Libby calls him as a witness at trial as his lawyers vow they will. Walton said it is irrelevant whether Wilson was right or wrong in his criticism of the administration.

What matters is that Libby and the White House were determined to respond to Wilson's accusations, Walton said.

One might have thought that the motivation behind the Administration's response to Wilson was an underlying issue in this trial - if they were responding to Wilson because they believed he was, objectively, wrong, that might suggest something different from a response motivated by the belief that he was politically problematic.  "They were trying to refute him" is different from "they were trying to punish him".

But I'm not a judge.

Comments

[clarice]

The jury's forbidden to do that, Lurker.. Truly it's hard to see how the prejudicial nature outweighs the probative use of those.Just remember , this is discovery. I do not expect the the judge will be making conclusive rulings on admission at this point. Basically he made Fitz show his hand to Libby on the articles .

[cathyf]

I'm having a hard time seeing how they could be sensibly redacted to remove the bits about lying administration officials.

Ok, I'll give it a try ;-)

What I Didn't Find In Africa By Joe Wilson

[redacted lie about who sent him]

[redacted lie about what what the CIA did with the info]

[redacted lie about the forgeries]

(Mr Wilson is former ambassador to Gabon married to the former Valerie Plame with two sets of twin children.)

I dunno -- whaddya think? It's certainly concise for those jurors who don't like to read...

cathy :-)

[clarice]

That's about it. See--again this is discovery--Fitz didn't want Libby to know now he was going to try to get that crap before the jury. If Libby's lawyers hadn't succeeded in making him tip his hand, he'd have tried that in the middle of the trial--now everyone has a chance to really focus on them..under less pressure..
Man, you can imagine from these and the presser what the gj was fed.

[mark c]

how about Jason "Longshot" Leopold

[PeterUK]

Clarice,
Is your legal system about justice or scoring points?